S4E2A - Coaches' Notes - Creating Woman A Day YYC w/ Danaye Maier

This week,  Seth & J.P. dive into the question "What is your creative process?" from our conversation with Danaye Maier.

Danaye had a wonderful insight towards the end of our conversation after we had explored a bit about how she embeds creativity into her daily life. It was a great moment in the conversation, and really got us thinking about our own creative process.

So, what's yours? 

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Transcript

Seth Anderson: 0:00

I'm just wondering, like, when you kind of sit and pause, like, how do you define creativity?

Danaye Maier: 0:12

I guess like you just opened my eyes up to my entire life. Lab together that I, again, get really stubborn over and make them work. I guess like, I guess that day going with it like not, if it's something that like, gets that spark going in you and gets you fired up and gets you feeling passionate. Don't question it. Don't Don't go in and just go with it and be really, really hard on yourself. I guess that is my creative process. So it cannot be my definition. About work. It's your process. So yeah, yeah, I guess that's

Seth Anderson: 0:55

it that was a powerful quote that led us in here and JP, I did not expect heading into this conversation with Rene that she was gonna have your life flashed before her eyes. And I didn't

JP Gaston: 1:11

expect at any point before or during, and it was still a little bit surprised after this conversation. That happened.

Seth Anderson: 1:20

It was pretty cool. Pretty powerful, though, like she had that insight. And you could kind of see that evolve as the conversation went along, which was awesome. Like, it totally was not the intent going in, like, just let's go have this cool conversation with this cool person. Basically, we'll talk about creativity, but to see her like, connect together her own creative process, as we had the conversation was pretty cool.

JP Gaston: 1:42

I really feel like we're both coaches. We've both been through coach training. And there's a certain there's a certain level of comfort and familiarity with the way we ask questions, and maybe that inspired it, like maybe there was just we happen to ask the right questions at the right time. But it was cool.

Seth Anderson: 2:03

It was it was fun. It was a lot of fun. And I think so a couple of things really stuck for me on this particular episode. And I mentioned it sort of as the lead into that, quote there, around her mentioning that her superior life is just a series of slap togethers. And she was basically too stubborn to quit once you've passed a certain threshold. And that really, really resonates with me.

JP Gaston: 2:28

Just a series of slapped together as a

Seth Anderson: 2:30

Yeah, well, the amount of times it's like, yeah, I could do that. And then all of a sudden, you're like, eyeballs, deepen something, and you're like, I don't know how the hell I got here. But you just like, you gotta keep going. And I have many things where that has been the situation. And I think the second part that really brings that to life was the other thing she mentioned in the episode where Janae was talking about how she'll only try things, she's really good at them. And before she'll even jump in, or make that step forward. And you and I were kind of chatting about this before we hopped on here, like that's totally true as well, like, you often do not want to try things if you think you might be bad at them, or you had a bad experience, or you try and you're not really good at it at first and you're like, No, never doing that again. And like that. I don't Is that a bias your bias guide? Is that become like a self limiting belief? Or what do you call it? Yeah,

JP Gaston: 3:24

it would be a bias you've, you've created an experience in your head that you're referring back to you constantly. So it's a experiential bias. There's, I mean, depending on the situation, it could be all sorts of biases. But yeah, it's absolutely a bias. And like, I think of all the opportunity that you lose, by doing that, everyone does it. I do it all the time. But there are a lot of things that I have been really bad at at certain points in my life that I feel like if I just gave them a chance,

Seth Anderson: 3:51

what were you really bad at and like then you went back to it. And you're like, Oh, this is actually kind of fun. I'm so bad at it, but like I'm not afraid of it. Maybe

JP Gaston: 4:01

ice hockey goalie.

Seth Anderson: 4:04

Works is a good one. Because like, yeah, a lot of us you try a sport when you're like 12 And then you're like, don't suck at that. Never find that again. And then. Okay, so ice hockey goalie. Well, I

JP Gaston: 4:14

mean, I don't know I don't think I'm horrible at it. But certainly it was I went from playing ball hockey to play an ice hockey and it was of everyone thinks that you're just

Seth Anderson: 4:25

like beer naturally or No, I

JP Gaston: 4:27

never skated. Never ever other. I hadn't skated when I skated the first time playing ice hockey goalie, like seven years ago. It was the first time I had skated probably in a decade, like,

Seth Anderson: 4:39

ah, and you just did it. And you were good at it. Well,

JP Gaston: 4:43

I didn't. But I enjoy it. Right. So I stuck with it because I enjoy it. And it was a different experience. And I didn't have that sort of preconceived notion about what it would be. So I stuck with it. And I got better at it. I'm still not great at it.

Seth Anderson: 5:00

No, but I mean, you're you're not afraid of it No, probably

JP Gaston: 5:03

not depends on who we're playing.

Seth Anderson: 5:08

Does that does that stubborn component what the name was talking about? Like, okay, now that I'm in it?

JP Gaston: 5:13

Oh, absolutely. I have always wanted to play I couldn't when I was a kid for medical reasons, I just wasn't allowed to play heavy contact sports. So I just never got into hockey. I started playing ball hockey, and just loved it. Like, I was the guy in the driveway with my brother. We were using the outfielders glove and a tennis ball. And like pizza boxes strapped to your life. Like, I'm a great guy. I loved it. And so, you know, I stick with it, because I love it. And I always wanted to play ice hockey. Now if I feel like I'm doing it, like I'm in the moment.

Seth Anderson: 5:49

That's awesome. That's good. I mean, my hockey experience. It's interesting, because I didn't, I didn't skate for a really long time. And then I couldn't skate. And then I was like, I don't want to go anywhere near a hockey rink. And then I had a lot of feet problems for a lot of years. So like, again, in my head, I knew how to skate my body would not cooperate with it. And then I was just like, well, I guess I've never played hockey again, I'd actually resigned myself, by my mid 20s. To the fact that I was never going to be able to play hockey or skate again,

JP Gaston: 6:22

for that matter. Here. You've been like playing with Linden and Cochin? And yeah.

Seth Anderson: 6:29

It's amazing what can happen. I mean, physically, obviously, I did some things that helped put me in a position to be able to do that again. But it's funny, like, just sitting here and reflecting and being like, yeah, there was a point in my life where I was, like, 100% convinced that I would never do that again, or that would never be an option. And like to think of all the joy and good times that came from, you know, putting myself out there and trying that and like, basically learning to skate again, because like you lose it after 15 years of basically not skating. Like it takes some practice and some hours and, and whatever. But, you know, then that stubbornness kicks in and it's like, okay, like I can, I can go out and coach 10 year olds at hockey practice. This is cool. I like this.

JP Gaston: 7:11

So yeah, it's not like you're waiting for the next flames. Try out fresh. But I can't

Seth Anderson: 7:19

wait. I think that has probably passed. I can probably let that dream go

JP Gaston: 7:24

high. As long as Mike Smith's out there. I've got a chance.

Seth Anderson: 7:29

Hey, man, you could be the next one was I had that David Aris guy, the guy that got Yeah.

Unknown: 7:34

And beating Toronto. I'm all over that. You could do that. Yeah. 100%.

JP Gaston: 7:40

Hey, if I play them in the first round, I'm guaranteed to beat the hell out

Seth Anderson: 7:43

of you. Absolutely. So yeah, those were those were really the I mean, I I love chatting with an A and just to be so open and like, I don't know. I mean, when you're on the radio for a living, you know, just good at talking good at conversating. Good. Yeah.

JP Gaston: 8:01

You got a little experience behind the mic. Yeah. So that was

Seth Anderson: 8:05

that was cool. But like, I just love how like you kind of got like the running dialogue that was going on in her brain as we were going through the conversation. And there was a couple of insights there that were super helpful for me both just as a person and even as a coach. There was a couple of couple of pieces I really enjoyed about that conversation.

JP Gaston: 8:21

Yeah, I thought I really thought it tied back to our first episode well to like Terry talked about how creativity loves constraint, and Denae talked about how necessity was important for her creative process, which is a form of constraint, and certainly one that I experienced a lot. There's a certain point at which you go, oh, shoot, I need to be creative, either as an outlet or to fulfill a particular need. And I just, I thought it was interesting that even though they have very different definitions, there's that sort of similarity between them.

Seth Anderson: 8:52

Yeah. And I mean, I think we'll find that throughout the season. That's what I love about just the whole creative space. It's one of those things where there's not one definition that you can just go put in a dictionary and that's it. There's so many different interpretations, so many different expressions. And it's just a privilege to get to pick people's brains on

JP Gaston: 9:10

it. Merriam Webster DeSantis. But,

Seth Anderson: 9:13

wow, you know what, maybe we should have wrapped up

JP Gaston: 9:17

a reptile with Miriam when they would when I am positive that they have a thesaurus or two. All right,

Seth Anderson: 9:27

I might have bitten off more than I can chew there. So speaking of constraint, we were gonna cut this week's episode half of what we did last week. Tight keep it tight until the point. So any last words for the folks at home before we before we dive into next week's episode, it's gonna come quickly on the heels. Yeah.

JP Gaston: 9:48

I would just say think about your own creative process. What are the what are the things that draw you into your creative core force you in some cases,

Seth Anderson: 9:56

what is what is your creative process because like if you listen to that, So DNA, you know, he asked us at the end if that was an okay process, like, Absolutely, it's your process. You do you. But I do think that a lot of those insights come from knowing what your process is, right? Like, you know what it is, then you can repeat it or improve it, build off, et cetera. So, great question to leave everyone with today like what is your creative process?